1. Field of Invention
The present disclosure relates to a cowl structure of a vehicle. More particularly, it relates to a cowl structure of a vehicle which has a configuration of a changed apron upper member and cowl, and is provided with an engine compartment extension panel and A-pillar, thereby decreasing a damage exerted to a chest of an occupant seated in the driver seat during a vehicle collision and increasing a torsional rigidity of a vehicle body.
2. Description of Related Art
In general, a vehicle consists largely of a vehicle body and a chassis. The vehicle body is a portion which forms an outer appearance of the vehicle, and the chassis is a portion on which at least mechanical apparatus necessary for driving the vehicle are mounted.
A vehicle cowl is a portion of the vehicle body and refers to a front panel portion which is connected to a front window frame of the vehicle. Generally, the cowl has a shape designed to minimize a resistance of the air generated by the flow of air during driving.
Specifically, as a performance test for a vehicle, there is a small overlap crash test wherein only over 25% of the front part of a vehicle body is collided with a fixed obstacle while a vehicle is driven at a speed of 64 km per hour. Recently, in order to respond to the small overlap crash test, various researches into increasing a rigidity of the vehicle cowl have been actively conducted.
As shown in FIG. 1A, a conventional cowl structure for a vehicle includes A-pillar 1 arranged in a vertical direction of the vehicle body, an apron upper member 2 which is arranged on a front of the A-pillar 1 spaced apart therefrom in a longitudinal direction of the vehicle body, and a cowl 4 arranged between the A-pillar 1 and the apron upper member 2 across a vehicle width direction of the vehicle body.
In addition, as shown in FIG. 1B, a cowl cross bracket 5 is connected to the A-pillar 1, and an A-pillar extension panel 3 is fastened between the cowl 4 and the cowl cross bracket 5 by bolts.
However, in the conventional cowl structure for a vehicle, as shown in FIG. 2, since a joint part between the apron upper member 2 and the cowl 4 has a discrete cross section, the rigidity thereof is decreased, and thus shock absorption performance during a vehicle collision is reduced, and further the rigidity at an impact point of the vehicle body decreases, and thus the cowl 4 is to be bent during the vehicle collision, and thereby a chest injury to an occupant seated in the driver seat may become serious due to a deformation thereof.
When a corner section of the joint part between the A-pillar 1 and the cowl 4 is collapsed by a vehicle front collision, for instance, the cowl 4 is pushed reward. In order to improve such a phenomenon, an extension panel 3 and a cowl cross bar bracket 5 has to be further fixed to the joint part between the A-pillar 1 and the cowl 4 by fastening bolts, and thus there is an increase in the number of vehicle body parts, as well as manpower and costs required for bolt fastening work.
The information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.